台湾走过烽火边缘 (王景弘)

This is quite an interesting book about how Taiwan suffered collateral damage in WW2 as a result of the US's plans in the Pacific. Taiwan's position at that time was not ambiguous, she was a colony of Japan after she was annexed by the Japanese after the First Sino-Japanese War. Based on the book, there were 80433 Taiwanese who served in the military under the Japanese, not a huge number. But while the islands in the Pacific such as Saipan, Iwo Jima and Okinawa were ravaged by fighting, Taiwan did not see battles on the island. And this brings us to one interesting but relatively unknown fact - the USA did consider quite seriously invading Taiwan. In fact, the 10th Army made extensive preparations for it. But in the end when it came to the decision between invading Taiwan and the Philippines, it was the latter that was chosen because of General MacArthur's argument that the US owes an obligation to the people in the Philippines.

However, while Taiwan was spared the invasion, she had to suffer numerous bombings by the US 5th Air Force because the invasion of the Philippines requires immobilising the airfields of the Japanese in Taiwan, this later extends to the war-related industrial compounds.

This book offers a few interesting pieces of information and some thought-provoking questions. First of all, there are actually very few sources that talks about the role of Taiwan in the Second World War, so a comprehensive discussion like this one is quite valuable. Secondly, the last chapter that discusses the fate of Taiwan after the war is especially instructive. That lack of clarity with which she was dealt with would result in her equally unenviable situation today, 75 years after the Japanese surrendered. The question of how the Taiwanese looked at the Second World War was much a result of that aftermath and also that of the Chinese Civil War when the KMT retreated to the island. Given the reprieve, Taiwanese looked at the Second World War as the Eight Years of Resistance (八年抗战). But the author asked, how was it eight years or resistance? Was there resistance at all for the indigenous Taiwanese in the first place?

One more question, something counterfactual, is what if the Americans had invaded Taiwan instead of the Philippines? If the Americans did that, it is likely that they would continue to occupy the island and would the KMT have the option of retreating to that island after the Civil War? If not, what would become of Taiwan then?

This is a useful book insofar as the Taiwan parts are concerned. However, there are parts that are less useful and I wonder if they should even be in the book if not for the sake of completeness. Parts like how the Japanese started the war, their conquests in Southeast Asia, and how they came to surrender are better addressed elsewhere. Their presense in the book neither relates to the Taiwanese situation nor did they add anything to existing knowledge, given their rather skimpy treatment. There is one inaccuracy when the author was describing what happened in that Imperial Conference when Tojo reported that war with the USA was inevitable. The author said that the Emperor heard the news and did not say anything (pg. 44, 一言不发) when we know that he went on to read a poem written by his grandfather. This mistake is a costly one, for it calls into question the accuracy of the information in the book, this being quite a noticeable one. The other one is of course, the common one about the guns in Singapore facing the wrong direction that has been comprehensively debunked by other scholars (Hack 2003).

In view of the dearth of information on Taiwan's role in the Second World War (admittedly relatively minor), this book is a good addition to the small pool. Unfortunately, it spends about a third of the book trying to complete the picture of the War in the Pacific distracting the reader and extending it achieving no better outcome.